10 hours without access to some services. It is known that Microsoft was attacked
In recent weeks, we have learned that now more than ever before, we must expect the unexpected. Two major failures in such a short time are unprecedented and perhaps not entirely independent of each other. Cybercriminals are clearly testing new boundaries and showing us that they are constantly developing their skills – this is how Kamil Sadkowski, an analyst at the ESET antivirus laboratory, commented on yesterday’s Microsoft system failure.
On the last day of July, there was a coordinated DDoS attack, which consisted of mass connection to servers in order to exceed their capacity. As a result, users who wanted to use purchased Microsoft services could not log in to them. Thousands of users had difficulties using Outlook, Office 365, Azure cloud system, among others, for almost 10 hours. Minecraft fans also complained.
DDoS attacks cut off users from services for 10 hours
The incident comes less than two weeks after a major global outage that caused about 8.5 million Microsoft computers to stop working properly, affecting industries including healthcare and travel, and was caused by a faulty software update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
Microsoft has admitted that there was a bug that affected users around the world.
“Initial findings indicate that an error in the implementation of our security measures amplified the effects of the recent DDoS attack rather than mitigated them,” Microsoft said in a statement. The attack occurred just before the giant’s financial results were released.
DDoS attacks are harmless but spectacular
A DDoS attack involves flooding a server or network with a huge number of fake requests from multiple sources, causing overload and preventing normal users from accessing company resources. The goal of such an attack is to cause a system failure or a significant decrease in its performance.
– In recent weeks, we have learned that now more than ever before we need to expect the unexpected. Two major failures in such a short time are unprecedented and perhaps not entirely independent of each other. Cybercriminals are clearly testing new boundaries and showing us that they are constantly developing their skills – said Kamil Sadkowski, an analyst at the ESET antivirus laboratory.
He added that DDoS attacks are not the most dangerous, but they are very spectacular.
– Cybercriminals are able to cause chaos and draw the attention of many people to themselves. They can be treated as a kind of show of force. However, there is no need to fear that as a result of these events, for example, our data is at risk – explained Sadkowski.